So I went to this thing called Christianity 21 this past weekend.  A lot of my friends joked that I should get away somewhere tropical with my husband since it was our 20th wedding anniversary.  But no… this is what we chose.  A 3 day conference in Minneapolis about what we dreamed for Christianity in the 21st century. This trip was no tropical paradise.

Believe me, I’ve come to expect the last place you’ll find the emotional equivalent to sand between your toes and Pina Coladas is a Christian conference.  Honestly,  I’ve been to many of them before and have found them to be rather “chilly”.  But here in Minneapolis amidst early warnings of snow (as a matter of fact it even snowed over Friday night)  I felt somehow thawed out.

I could first feel my toes moving when I heard the initial concept of the weekend.  There would be 21 speakers, all women who would speak for 21 minutes each. Yes, that piqued my interest, mostly because it wasn’t a women’s conference.  How refreshing for at least part of the Christian culture to proclaim women had something to say to everyone.  Something Jesus knew.

From theology to personal stories of faith to opinions of what church should be, these women brought it.   Each in their own way, they spoke of a God that welcomes change and a faith that transcends preconceived ideas.   Diana Butler Bass recounted the constant change that the church has undergone and how the church has always persevered.  With her example, “Protestantism didn’t kill Catholicism” maybe we can chip away at those frozen parts of guilt and fear of destruction and search on knowing that we are only adding to the understanding of this God we follow.

A God, I believe that can deal with our nagging questions because God purposely placed Godself within the human context of doubt and rejection and persecution and death.  As Debbie Blue said, “our stories are not stories that lift us out of our bodies, but stories that meet us there.”

So if God can meet us amidst all our unsavory humanness why can’t the church meet its people wherever they are?  And this is where the body thaws on the inside and the heart starts beating again.

Ah, to imagine a church as Seth Donovan says, “where it is less important to be right than to be loved.”  or a place that Alise Barymore described as “a church available to both the curious and committed.”

These people were speaking my language – thaw, thaw, thaw and  I didn’t perceive one secret handshake or whispered password.  That’s comforting for someone like me who has known the cold breeze of judgment when I somehow picked the wrong word, analogy or Bible passage when talking with other “religious people”.

But now I lay on this warm sandy beach of challenging theology amidst reflection of our Christian tradition and I felt I was not alone.

There are people grappling with the same issues I do and there are people who also feel compelled to do something about it.

In 2001 my husband Don and I  set out to start a church that was different from all the churches we had been to or visited.  We took our wacky step-sister of a service out of the conventional church we were in and planted it in a run down, under-funded community center not at all in the center of town.

There we attempted a church that was welcoming from the time you parked your car to the moment you left.  Not welcoming in a slick system or church logo’d polo shirt kind of way but welcoming because the community genuinely wanted you there.  You – no matter who you were, how you lived, what you thought, where you worked, what you looked like or who you hung out with.   We envisioned a place with a two-way conversation.  A place where we offer you food, talk with you and not talk at you.

We are not alone.

How warm the water is when you leave the frigid waters of accusation, piousness and code words. When you give in to the freedom to splash around and throw all that crap to the side of the water and discuss what it takes to make our churches a place of authentic community where people can be themselves, wrestle with their faith and bask in the warmth of God’s love.

Pina Colada anyone?